It's a Wonderful Gilmore Life
by WizMonCruWil
Summary: It's a Wonderful Life with a Gilmore twist. Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1: The Dark Day

**Chapter 1: The Dark Day**

Luke Danes was brooding. Not that he should have been surprised that he was; it was the anniversary of his father's death, after all. His annual Dark Day. But unlike most Dark Days, he had been unable to get away from his hometown of Stars Hollow, or his Diner, to spare the people he loved.

And all of them were now running him ragged.

"Luke, can you please consider putting up decorations in your window? Just this once?" Taylor pleaded.

"Not now, Taylor," Luke growled.

Kirk all but attacked Luke over at the counter as he rounded back over towards the Keurig. "Luke, can you provide me with another cup and extra milk?"

"Kirk, provide me with a FILTER for that brain of yours! You're driving me insane!" Luke barked. Luke was having a hard enough time as it was, with the clacking of Rory's laptop ringing in his ears at one table.

Luke's wife, Lorelai, frowned at Luke's unusually harsh treatment of Kirk. "Honey, can you lighten up a tad?"

"Can you, for once in your life, stop talking?" Luke bit back. More clacking of the laptop finally made him explode. "Rory, haven't you finished that silly book yet? Now, stop it, STOP IT!"

The entire eatery fell silent in utter shock. Though a few patrons were glaring at Luke. Jess now stalked back from the storeroom. "Leave Rory alone, Luke! You're being an ass!"

"Says the guy who was nothing BUT an ass until he was 18!" Luke returned.

"FUCK YOU!" Jess bellowed. WHAM! He punched Luke in the face so that blood spurted from his nose and began trickling down towards his mouth.

Now, a pin drop could have been heard in the Diner as Luke finally cooled his jets and realized how awful he had been. He tried to apologize, but no one would listen to him. Sadly, he stumbled out of the Diner and fled in his truck, shaken by how much of a monster he had become.

* * *

Standing on a highway bridge outside Hartford, deep depression and frustration stewed inside Luke. He couldn't believe how much he had hurt everyone he cared for. Maybe it would be better...

Luke began to climb the bridge's railing. He was swinging one leg over when...

"It's a long way down."

Luke looked back to see an elderly man in a tweed coat and hat observing him. "Who are you?"

"Clarence Osbody, Angel 2nd Class," the man held out his hand. Ignoring the odd status title, Luke shook it. "Why do you wanna jump anyway?"

Luke sighed. "I don't know. I'm still not over my dad dying 30 years ago. And today I've been alienating everyone I've ever cared about. They're seeing me for the monster I really am. Sometimes... sometimes I wish I'd never been born!"

Clarence raised an eyebrow and frowned. "You really mean that?"

"Yeah, I mean it!" Luke groused.

Clarence shrugged. "OK, then."

And he suddenly waved his hand.


	2. Chapter 2: Nightmares Hollow

**Chapter 2: Nightmares Hollow**

At first, Luke did not understand what Clarence's hand-waving had done. Luke didn't feel any different. Nothing seemed changed about the stretch of highway near him, nothing seemed amiss. Clarence stood before him expectantly, waiting.

And then, Luke felt his face. The blood around his mouth from where Jess had punched him in the face was gone. That was odd...

"Would you like to go home?" Clarence prompted, though his eyes betrayed a deep sadness.

Feeling a strange sense of foreboding, Luke nodded. He and Clarence got into Luke's truck and drove back to Stars Hollow. There was the Gazebo...

But that is where the similarities ended. As Luke got out of the truck, he was startled to see that the storefront where his Diner should have been was boarded up. The brick roof was partially caved in, and a sign that read William's Hardware hung over the door, instead of the yellow coffee cop bearing his own business's insignia.

Thinking back to his father, and how his grief over the elder Danes' death had led him here in the first place, Luke asked Clarence, "Where is my father?"

"Where he has always been," Clarence replied. "You know the way."

Luke stumbled over to the Stars Hollow cemetery. There were the graves of his mother and father, in the same spot they had been for years...

Wait... the years of his father's life were off. Instead of November 30th, 1989 as the date of death, his father's passing was now inscribed as April 14th, 1983.

"How is this possible?" Luke gaped.

"Your father died much faster due to the cancer because you weren't there to help him through the treatments," Clarence explained.

William's early death started to make Luke feel very nervous. "Liz. Where is Liz?!"

Clarence merely pointed to a third grave beside his mother's spot, that Luke had failed to notice earlier. She had died only four months after William's death!

"Drug overdose," Clarence said somberly. "And grief."

Luke was slowly starting to come unraveled. "Is Jess all right?!"

Clarence blinked, perplexed. "Luke... Jess doesn't exist."

Of course. Liz dying early meant she had likely never met Jimmy Mariano, thus never getting pregnant with and giving birth to Jess. Thinking of his nephew made him think of his daughter, and he began calling her name.

"April! April!" he called.

"She's not here, either, Luke. You were never there to meet Anna," Clarence explained.

"I gotta get outta here!" And Luke ran back to town. With fresh eyes, he began to prowl the streets, going door to door.

Where was Dosse's Market? Instead, there was a seedy looking pharmacy. And on a bench in front of it sat a white-bearded man that looked like...

"Taylor?!"

At the sound of his name, Taylor raised his head, but his eyes were unfocused, glassy. This was quickly explained by the syringe he was now pulling out of his arm. "Who's... uh... who are you, young man?"

Luke's eyes went wide with horror and he backed away. Turning on his heel, he sprinted in the other direction. Miss Patty's ballet studio was gone, replaced by a nightclub. Peering through one of the windows, Luke discovered Miss Patty herself, pole dancing as part of an elaborate striptease routine.

Luke just shook his head. "Man, she's really let herself go..."

"Mmmhmmm," Clarence only nodded from where he had popped up by Luke's side.

Luke started to rattle off his neighbors in his head. "Kirk?" he asked tentatively, no matter how annoying the young man could be.

The answer still made him nearly collapse to the sidewalk. "Mental facility in Hartford. He runs a knitting business out of his cell."

 _Still an entrepreneur, I see,_ Luke thought.

And now his thoughts drifted to the two people who were worth the whole crazy town. "Clarence, where are Lorelai and Rory?"

For the first time since starting this strange journey, Clarence did not come ready with an answer. Indeed, he seemed afraid to say. "I don't think I should tell you that..."

Luke seized at the angel's collar. "WHERE'S MY WIFE? WHERE'S MY STEPDAUGHTER?!"

"37 Maple Street!" Clarence squeaked.

 _They're still here... They're in the same house!_ Luke thought, as he took off running towards the other two-thirds of his heart...

* * *

Clarence caught up to Luke on Maple Street, and after some wrangling, convinced him to approach from the backyard. The pair circled around through Morey and Babette's yard (if it still was their yard) and approached the back porch door that Luke had repaired countless times before. Luke crouched with his Guardian Angel underneath a window. From his position, he could see into the kitchen and past it through the open door leading to Rory's room. In the doorway, he could see...

"Christopher?" Luke's former rival was standing nearly nose-to-nose with Lorelai, a bottle in one hand, yelling for the heavens to hear and not caring who heard.

"WHY WOULD YOU LOCK ME OUT OF OUR BANK ACCOUNT, HUH? I'M YOUR HUSBAND!"

"Because you spend it all on booze!" Lorelai hissed. "When we should be saving for our daughter's education!"

"You don't get to tell me what to do, bitch!" Chris thundered. And he slapped Lorelai hard across the face. Luke visibly flinched, his mouth open in horror. Sure, the Christopher he knew was a bumbling ass, but he wasn't capable of... violence...

From her place on a cushioned seat between her parents, Luke saw a 16-year-old Rory raise her head from the pages of a novel. "Dad, can you cut it out? I'm trying to read my book!" She didn't sound enraged or even horrified as what Christopher had just done. She actually sounded annoyed... as if Christopher's striking his wife was a common occurrence.

"Oh, yeah?" Christopher sneered. "Well, here's what I think of your book, you brat!" And he seized it from Rory and ripped it with his bare hands. Rory stared, and her eyes began to fill with tears.

"Chris, stop it!" Lorelai snapped.

"SPEAK WHEN YOU'RE SPOKEN TO!" Chris bellowed and his hands suddenly closed around Lorelai's throat as Rory stared screaming.

Luke had seen enough. He lunged for the back porch door, struggling with Clarence as the angel tried to hold him back.

"Luke, don't!"

"Get off of me!" And Luke sprinted into the kitchen, then into Rory's room. He lunged at Christopher and propelled both their bodies into a dresser. Keeping Christopher pinned against it and down low to the ground, Luke began to pummel him again and again and again. There was a sharp CRACK as a bone broke, blood spurted from Christopher's nose, but Luke didn't stop. He nearly lost control, so great was his want to hurt this man as badly as he had hurt Luke's girls...

A sudden THUD as Lorelai collapsed to the floor was all that made Luke take pause. Rory was glued to the wall, eyeing Luke warily. Tentatively, the teenager approached her unconscious mother.

"Mom...?"

"Rory, stay where you are!" Luke called over his shoulder instinctively.

Rory's eyes narrowed distrustfully. "How do you know my name?"

Luke thought fast. The bookcase with Rory's name on it that he had made for her would obviously not exist in this world, but he quickly spotted a picture frame engraved with Rory's name and seized onto that. He pointed to the picture, before scrambling over to check on Lorelai.

She still had a pulse, but he would have to get her to the hospital. Luke gingerly lifted the only woman he had ever truly loved into his arms. Ordering Rory to follow him, he spirited them both away from the house. It was only at Rory's reminder that he even thought to bring Chris's unconscious form with them, too.

* * *

At Hartford Memorial Hospital, Rory's parents were wheeled into the ward. Luke sat with Rory in the waiting room. Oddly, neither of them spoke, but perhaps it was better that way, at least for self-preservation on Luke's part. Self-preservation of whatever he had left.

An hour or so later, Richard and Emily Gilmore bustled in. Emily rounded right on Luke.

"Beating up on my son-in-law! Who do you think you are?!"

Luke tried to explain, careful not to use Emily's name, but she would have none of it. "Rory," she barked. "Go back there are check on your parents! We will follow."

"Yes, ma'am," Rory said meekly. Not _Grandma_. _Ma'am_.

"And you stay right there!" Emily snapped at Luke. "We're calling the cops!" And she led Richard away.

They had scarcely left when Clarence poked his head in the waiting room door. Luke jumped; he had completely forgotten about the guardian angel in leaving the Gilmore house.

"Luke, we gotta get out of here!" Clarence ordered. And the pair fled.

"Clarence, what the hell is going on? How is this possible?" Luke moaned.

"This is reality, Luke," Clarence explained somberly.

Luke sputtered in disbelieving rage. "This? _This?!_ What the _hell_ is this?! You keep talking about _this_ as if it actually is real!"

"It _is_ real!" Clarence stressed.

"A world where my entire family is dead? My nephew and my daughter don't exist? The love of my life and her child are being abused?! No thanks, Clarence! Take me back! I want to live again!"

And before Luke could stop him, Clarence simply gave a wave of his hand.


	3. Chapter 3: Merry Christmas, You Old Soda

**Chapter 3: Merry Christmas, You Olde Soda Shoppe!**

The first thing Luke felt was rusty and warm blood pooling around his mouth. He was bleeding... He was bleeding!

Luke cackled with amazed glee. "My mouth is bleeding, Clarence!" He practically squealed. And he gave his guardian angel a huge hug.

Clarence beamed. "You're welcome, Luke. Now don't you have somewhere to be?"

Luke began to sprint back towards Stars Hollow. His truck was no longer where it had been on the bridge, both in the altered timeline and before, but he wouldn't have been surprised if Clarence had just transported it back to the Diner. Charging into town, Luke shouted out Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everything and everyone he saw.

"Merry Christmas, Gazebo! Merry Christmas, Dosse's Market! Merry Christmas, you Olde Soda Shoppe!"

And there was the Diner. Luke burst in, the grin nearly breaking his face, to find all the people he loved there. Taylor Dosse immediately stood up.

"Now, Luke, to pick up where we left off on those banners for the Diner..."

"Put them all over the place, Taylor!" Luke beamed. And he actually kissed the grocer on the forehead. There was a mighty CRASH as Taylor promptly fainted dead away at this sudden change in Luke's persona.

"Luke, I did a test on my brain while you were gone. It appears I don't have a filter..." Kirk offered up quite seriously.

"Come here you little squirt!" And Luke Noogied Kirk's scalp.

Miss Patty appeared. "Lucas, what does a lady have to do to get a pot of coffee around here?"

Luke hugged here. "Nothing, Miss Patty! Just keep being you!"

"Why, Lucas! You naughty, naughty boy!" Patty winked, not expecting the totally innocent hug from someone who had never been known to freely give out hugs.

And there she was. The woman Luke had been dying to see, at the counter, running her fingers over her wedding band.

"Thank God! We're still married!" Luke rushed up to Lorelai. Lorelai merely glanced at him and gave a prissy frown.

"We might not be for long, mister. I'm not talking to you!"

"Oh come on, crazy lady! You really think I'm gonna let you get away that easily?" And Luke suddenly dipped Lorelai and gave her the most passionate kiss he could muster. Within moments, she was puddy in his hands. The rest of the town stared. A few gave wolf-whistles.

"What's going on?" Kirk gaped.

"The man is certifiably insane!" Taylor offered his theory as he staggered to his feet upon regaining consciousness.

A stampede of feet down the stairs made Luke glance back as he broke the kiss and swung Lorelai back onto his feet. Next second, he was barreling into his kids, bear-hugging Jess, kissing Rory and April wherever he could reach. Realizing they all were alive and safe, he finally burst into tears.

"Oh, God... let me touch you... are you real?" he gasped. He held their gaze. "I am so sorry! I love every last one of you!"

Jess smiled softly. "We love you too, you big old grump."

It was truly a wonderful Gilmore life!

* * *

 **A/N: "Where the coffee's non-stop and I drop this hip-hop in my mom-and-pop shop, I'm home!... You here that music in the air? Take a train to the top of the world, and I'm there! I'm HOME!" Lin-Manuel Miranda, _In the Heights_**


End file.
